In this TED-style presentation, Alchemy Project Director, Matt Valler, explores a future for how we use the Bible. Drawing on 4 global mega-trends, Matt details profound cultural changes that are happening all over the world and proposes an approach to the future of Scripture Engagement that responds to these challenges as an opportunity to create something profoundly new.

Matt Valler sees postmodernity and its rejection of authority spreading globally. I understand that the rejection is due to the misuse of power by those in authority who should have been responsible and were not - they used their power for personal uses and to promote the benefit of the few over that of the majority. So now it is possible that this rejection of authority is seeping into the worldview of many other cultures to the degree that even the authority of the Scriptures is challenged (and when those in power in the church abuse that power, it is certainly understandable - see Ezekiel 34). Valler believes that the way to recapture the truth and reality of the Scriptures (my own translation of his explanation) is to present the Scriptures in a participatory paradigm, one in which engagement with the Word is not through the lens of authority but through intimate engagement with the Word, truly living out the story (not just sitting in church and hearing the Word and then walking away and forgetting what it says), and wrestling with the Scriptures in community where perspectives are shared and respected and challenged in a respectful and loving manner. I don't think the speaker (Valler) is implying that the authority of the Scriptures is being challenged...only that maybe it is time to apply a new lens to Scripture Engagement. Of course Satan would like the authority lens to disappear entirely...but God can use this new paradigm for good if it is used as a launching place to reestablish the goodness of God and the goodness of the authority of His word.